6/29/2007

Actress turned writer/director Julia Stiles was given complete creative control and freedom in her gorgeously photographed work (available for free on iTunes) as one of the film shorts produced by Elle Magazine. Starring Zooey Deschanel as an aimless party girl who scams strangers on the street with sob stories, apologetically begging for money in order to “get a ride home,” we watch as Zooey goes from club to club until her path crosses a widowed, jobless, and equally "lost" middle aged business man and the two forgotten people strike an unlikely chord. He invites Zooey home to clean and pack his apartment for a hefty sum and she is told to take anything she’d like when he leaves her to her work. Given a chance to riff and quote old movies, she tries on an exquisite designer dress which, as the film’s plot summary promises, leads her to make a change in her life although the transition is uneven, as the two characters are never fully fleshed out and a strange segue bursts into the plot during the last portion of the film that seems like it was mostly included as an excuse to showcase Deschanel's extraordinary vocal talents. Although the short format is hardly beneficial in telling a complete story, we’re left wanting to know more about the heartbreaking man, played well by Bill Irwin. While we feel we understand a bit of what he’s experiencing due to Stiles’s usage of flashbacks and a well-timed freak-out, we suffer from a serious lack of information problem, making the film raise more questions than answers. Still, worth a look for the sheer beauty of the piece and the musical conclusion.

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